Manager Phil Parkinson felt Paul Mullin was on a different level as the Wrexham striker bagged a first-half hat-trick in the 4-0 thrashing of Accrington.

Mullin’s treble and Elliot Lee’s effort before half-time saw Wrexham return to League Two’s top three, with Stanley’s Lewis Shipley sent off late on.

Mullin now has 16 goals after his second hat-trick of the season and Parkinson was full of praise for the striker as Wrexham dominated proceedings to win their first game in four.

He said: “Mulls was brilliant. He was back to his sharpest.

“I felt the performance on Tuesday and the penalty, you could see he was lifted from that and he took it into today’s performance and they’re three really good goals.

“Like all goalscorers, what Mulls has done here in terms of his goal ratio is extraordinary and there’s going to be a period where it doesn’t go his way, we’ve been able to rest him a few games to keep him fresh and today he was on a different level at times.

“I’ve been saying that we’ve dominated a lot of games without really getting our rewards and we kept believing that dominance would be turned into goals because in the last few years it normally has.

“It’s probably the first time where we’ve had periods where we haven’t punished teams but today we were excellent in and around that final third which is the most important part of the football pitch.”

Accrington boss John Coleman – whose side dropped to 16th – admitted Mullin was the difference with his clinical finishing but felt the late dismissal for Shipley perhaps could have been a yellow instead.

He said: “It was clinical finishing by Paul Mullin. It was the big difference. We gifted them a couple of chances and he’s punished us.

“I’ve got to take my hat off to them. They had the bit between their teeth. They scored the goals at the right time.

“We’ve given them things to cheer about and you’re coming here wanting to stay in the game. The first two goals were totally avoidable, all goals were but the first two hurt and then it’s damage limitation.

“Second half I thought we rolled our sleeves up and didn’t get humiliated. We could have scored a couple ourselves and then the body blow is getting Lewis Shipley sent off.

“It’s disappointing. I think it could have been sold as a yellow, with a bit of empathy for the game, 92nd minute and being 4-0 down, it’s not going to influence the game being a red.”